OUR presence at the momentous OBIDATTI rally in Ibadan last Wednesday, November 21, was the ultimate evidence that we have boarded the people’s train with Peter Obi and Datti Ahmed for the redemption of our country.

To those who could not see beyond the conventional and are irredeemably fixated on the search for structures that have only held our nation and people hostage, let them know that the Obidient phenomenon is not a joke they thought would soon frizzle out.

A brother and learned colleague, out of sheer love, described our move, after my initial television interviews justifying the Afenifere’s endorsement of the ObiDatti ticket, as a descent to political Golgotha. We are quick to remind him that the way to redemption is paved with torns and a burdensome cross that must be borne at Golgotha, which Nigeria must experience, willy nilly.

As for questions coming from our compatriots, particularly those of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, with whom we have shared the same partisan platform in the last decade or so, I have done even more than the party constitution provides, twice called and addressed the meeting of my ward, Mahin 2 in Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State, informing our people about why it was difficult for me, in good conscience and for the peace of our nation, to support the ill-advised choice of the party’s presidential candidate on account of his region of origin.

Politics in Nigeria is without integrity; a country where the political class employs multiple and convenient standards and is careless about the consequences. The Nigerian State is raped, bruised, and denied the equity we seek in our families, traditional institutions, and even in our local politics.

We seek the same equity in campaigns with the ObiDatti that we frequently insist on, particularly in Yorubaland, in the rotation of our obaship among ruling houses constituted even by men of common ancestry, failing which we too often resort to the most expensive legal battles or mutually unleash fratricidal violence, unmindful of putting our monuments in flames.

It Is sheer hypocrisy that politicians who cannot compromise the zoning of their state houses of assembly, national assembly, and gubernatorial positions and in anger openly sabotage their parties during elections will shamelessly turn their backs to the equity they preached when it comes to the most important office and expect peace in the federation. They resort to worn-out clichés such as “power is not served à la carte” to justify political shenanigans that are in the long run ruinous to the health of the nation. To stay politically correct, their sense organs are deliberately deadening to hearing, seeing or perceiving evil in every material particular.

They zone to wards, senatorial districts and even tribal kingdoms within the same micro linguistic groupings in their local governments and states. Yet, without conscience, they insist on survival of the fittest for the leadership of our country, not on the basis of character and competence but on such mundane parameters as deep pockets and personalised structures which sources are obvious.

The PDP was founded on a legacy of national healing and consensus, enthroning the presidency as a regional and geopolitical harbinger of peace and progress. Despite its loss of power in 2015, it is regarded as a general-purpose vehicle for national redemption, so much so that those who transgressed against it were quickly forgiven and welcomed with open arms, with no loss of precedence or honor.

The party, on the other hand, ate the forbidden fruit when it convinced itself that the centre could be held while destroying the foundational covenant. We hold it evidently true in nature that in the current conflict between the PDP on the one hand and righteousness, truth and justice on the other, the result is a foregone conclusion.

The Committeee on Political Parties and Elections, of which I was a delegate at the 2014 National Conference, was co-chaired by Iyorchia Ayu and Ken Nnamani, both former presidents of the Nigerian Senate. The present National Chairman of the PDP was, therefore, a prominent delegate to the CONFAB which resolved and recommended that the office of the President of the Republic be zoned on the North/South regional and geopolitical basis to allay fears of political domination.

To be fair to Ayu, the position of National Chairman is his by right of the party’s convention and was obtained through consensus. However, prior to his inauguration on October 31, 2021, he had already given an interview implying the emergence of a Northern presidential candidate and that he would resign in that event, a promise that has now become his albatross.

The just call by the Integrity Group, led by Governor Nyesom Wike and his colleagues and supported by well-meaning party members and other Nigerians, is merely a parable against the PDP’s decision, which seeks iniquitously to retain power in the North after eight years of its presidency under Muhammadu Buhari. The nation eagerly awaits the fullest expression of integrity in the righteous league with the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum and the APC group led by Babachir Lawal. The issue is not Ayu or the National Chairman of any political party in the quest for inclusiveness and justice. It is the office of the president.

On a personal note, we have nothing against the party as an institution or the person of Atiku, its presidential candidate. I recall that in 2019 the 12 presidential aspirants who slugged it out at the convention in Port Harcourt all of northern origin wherein Atiku emerged flag bearer. I was a member of the National Campaign Council and other committees, the Chief Collation Officer for the elections, and the Returning Officer for our presidential candidate in Ondo State. We defeated the APC by 35, 000 votes, the largest margin in the South West.

However, the statuses of unifier and bridge builder, which are falsely ascribed to the ticket of the PDP, most befittingly belong to the Peter Obi and Datti Ahmed combination. It is the only arrangement in the present dispensation that justly answers all questions of regional and faith equity with leaders so that we do not have to hold our breath in engagements in the community of nations. As we join the people’s train with Peter Obi and Ahmed Datti, we call on all lovers of Nigeria from all walks of life, including those leaders and elders who put their youthful lives at risk for the unity of Nigeria, to come on board in this task to rescue our nation.

The generation that fought the Nigerian civil war was reconciliatory enough to elect an Igbo as Vice President only nine years later, by 1979. If we know that being related we shall always meet, it is only proper that we heal our minds and land of the vestiges of the war and live in peace. Igbo lokan.

Ebiseni is the Secretary General, Afenifere. (Vanguard)

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